Parashat Masa’ei (say “mah-sah-ey”) marks the end of the book of B’midbar (Numbers). As the book closes, we find the people anxiously poised in the east side of the Yarden (Jordan) wanting to finally leave this Wilderness (Heb: midbar) and enter into the promise that HaShem made so long ago with their forefathers. The Land and the Tribes are in full view here. I want to open our commentary by recalling some of the things that I stated in my haftarah commentary to Parashat Mattot. As some of you may know, the haftarah commentary is not made available to regular readers of the website, but only to those who have subscribed to the weekly portions, as received personally from me. In this opening to Parashat Masa’ei, I will use some of my material from my previous haftarah commentary. After that, I will go back over each of the previous nine commentary portions to B’midbar and construct a summary of the whole book. “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the Promised Land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” (Hebrews 11:8-10, NIV) As we notice from a reading of Parashat Masa’ei, the Land is in view here. HaShem is preparing to have the people go in and take possession of their promise. But in our western mindset it is easy to overlook just what that glorious promise made to Avraham (referred to in the above-quoted verse from Hebrews) entailed exactly. Was the promise just some far-off distant Heavenly Land that he would only be able to experience in his life to come as a spiritual child of HaShem? If we attempt to interpret this Land as only referring to heaven, then we make the physical promise of no effect! We do damage to the literal aspect that back in Genesis chapter 12 God was indeed making a covenant with a literal man, to become a literal people, who would inherit a literal piece of real estate! Sure, there are heavenly qualities that the Land is supposed to eventually possess, ones which it lacks at this juncture in history, but that doesn’t negate the fact that HaShem can and will bring his promises to Avraham’s offspring to pass! The sages refer to this glorious future time as the “’Olam Haba” (the Age to Come). In our theology, we would equate this to the Millennium time period. The TaNaKH is replete with passages describing a glorious dwelling place, within the Land of Promise, for ‘Am Yisra’el—and others! This Land is the very same location today where war and conquest are still rampant. But HaShem will change all of that one day. The desert will blossom and the mountains will drip with sweet wine! When that day arrives, Avraham will truly rejoice to see his children nestled in the glorious promises of a faithful, covenant-keeping God! I want to close out with a comment by The Stone Edition TaNaKH, which has this to say about the book of B’midbar: ‘The Book of Numbers begins and ends with Isra'el on the verge of entering its Land—but the thirty-eight intervening years of wandering in the Wilderness were a low point in Jewish history. This Book contains the episodes of the spies, who poisoned the minds of the people, the rebellion of Korah and his assembly, and the error of Moshe and Aharon that cost them the privilege of entering the land. But it also ends with the first step in the conquest of the Land of Isra'el.’ It is customary after the completion of a book of the Torah to say, “Chazak, chazak, v’nit’chazek!” (Be strong, be strong, and let us be strengthened!)